V-12 firing order

Could someone help me . My info says the cylinders are numbered: Driver side 1-3-5-7-9-11 Passenger side: 2-4-6-8-10-12<P>Firing order: 1-4-9-8-5-2-11-10-3-6-7-12.<P><BR>Is this correct for all yrs?<P>Thanks

Hi RB, my information has always been that the cylinder closest to the front of the engine is #1, so if this is true also on the V-12, that would switch the sides as you have them listed, in other words, the front cylinder on the passenger side would be #1, the firing order for all years, '36-'48 is; Firing order..1-4-9-8-5-2-11-10-3-6-7-12<BR>hope that helps-

ROLF and RB, Rolf maybe I'm reading your responce wrong , however the closest cylinder to the front on a lincoln is on the drivers side, and thats where NO 1 is. The caps are numbered, so you can't make a mistake if, so standing in front of the car the numbers for the right side and left side will be straight up. If you look at the ignition wiring diagram at the bottom of each cap there are arrows showing the numbers "STRAIGHT UP" and firing from the forward and rear rotor.<P>Hey Rolf sounds like your pulling my leg HA!<P>BILL<P>

Thank goodness we have Bill around here to keep us straight, I am chagrined, I looked at a murky picture of a V-12, and it looked like the cylinder on the passenger side was closest to the radiator, like a flathead V-8. WRONG, sorry about that, hope I didn't mislead anybody

Oddly enough all V-12s that I have checked Cadillac, Lincoln. Packard, Rolls-Royce Merlin, Allison and a few others that I have forgotten all have the same firing pattern, the problem is that they don?t number the !@#$%^&*()_+ cylinders the same! The Cadillac and the Lincoln all have the cylinders numbered odd on the left and even on the right, drivers view. Since The Germans number the cylinders 1,2,3,4,5,6 right and 7,8,9,10,11,12 left they obviously would seem to be different but probably aren?t. All automobile engines that I know turn the same way as this was determined by the hand crankers being right handed and not wanting to break thumbs, fingers, hands, arms or shoulders they turned the crank handle to the right or counterclockwise from the drivers view. This without the thumb being wrapped around the crank handle!! One can easily visualize the result to the bones if the spark was advanced and the engine backfired just what it would do to the old aforementioned body bones!<BR> I have never looked at enough engines to see if the number one cylinder on the drivers left was a conrod thickness ahead of the right bank but my guess is that it is that way. Anyone know for sure? Yours M.L. Anderson

In regards to the firing spacing of various numbered cylinder engines consider the following, the classic rule, note this is a rule and not a law, is 720 degrees divided by the number of cylinders. For example a 2 cyl. = 360 deg. spacing, 3 cyl. is 240 deg., 4 cyl. =180 deg.5 cyl. = 144 deg., 6 cyl. = 120 deg., 7 cyl. = 102.86 deg., 8 cyl. = 90 deg., 9 cyl. = 80 deg., 10 cyl. = 72 deg., 11 cyl. = 65.45 deg.12 cyl. = 60 deg., <BR>A four-stroke (cycle) engine takes 720 degrees to complete a full cycle of engine functions that is intake, compression, firing and exhaust. A two-stroke engine (cycle) is a different case altogether, which I do not want to get into.<BR> The above formula also works to get the bank angle of Vee style engines but must be used with great care. As I stated before this is a rule and not a law! <BR> Engines have been made in all sorts of bank angles, radials, X, W, and other configurations. Also they have been made in all sorts of firing spacing, usually called ?odd fire? engines. Buick owners should know a lot about the odd fire V-6s of some 20/30 years ago.<BR> Yours, M.L. Anderson

LINCOLN V-12 FIRING ORDER 75 DEGREE BLOCK

# 1-4-9-8-5-2-11-10-3-6-7-12

0-45-120-165-240-285-360-405-480-525-600-645 DEGREES

One has to remember that any V-12 is actually just two six cylinder engines on the same crankshaft and the fact that you change the bank angle does not result in a lot of Secondary Shake but does produce a slightly rougher running engine but as the 75 degree block is not enough for the average person to feel the difference in the smoothness, it doesn?t make much if any difference. The pistons and the upper conrod are balanced by pistons and conrods on the same side of the block unlike a V-8 with a 90-degree crankshaft. This also holds true for a V-8 with a 180-degree crankshaft and V-2s, V-4s and V-10s.

Someone on this site whose name and address I have lost expressed the fact that Lincoln has a 75-degree block to me. M.L. Anderson

This address will bring up a complete sketch of the Lincoln V-12 firing order and a firing pattern. Some people might find it interesting and infomative. Yours, M.L. Anderson <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

http://home.earthlink.net/~leslie9958/_uimages/V-12LINCOLN75DEG.FIRINGLINES.JPG

Please explain to me why the bank angle would have any thing to do with how smooth the engine runs.Thanks for printing the other info,interesting stuff.diz <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

An ordinary V-12 engine at sixty degrees bank angle fires at 0-60-120-180-240-300-360-420-480-540-600-660 crankshaft degrees. But a bank angle of 75 degrees the one bank has to fire at 0-45-120-165-240-285-360-405-480-525-600-645 degrees a difference of 15 degrees. They likely did this to overcome the narrow block and the intake manifold would have to be very high and narrow. I am in the very near future going to prepare sketch of the two different firing orders in a linear form so we may all understand just what happens. I have done this before in a circular form to display it to myself but not on a V-12 engine.

You may see in the above writings that the right bank fires earlier that it does on a ?Normal? 60-degree bank by 15-degrees..

If one were to make a bank angle of 120 degrees the two banks would fire as a six-cylinder engine and would not be as smooth as a normal 60 degrees bank angle. The only ?Perfect? firing bank angles are 60 degrees and 180 degrees normally known as 180-degree opposed engine. Ferrari has made some of these and called them ?Boxer? I believe.

The ?normal? crankshaft for any V-12 or ?Boxer? is with journals a 120-degrees apart. If one were to make 75-degree block to fire in the ?normal? 60-degrees pattern then one would have to offset the journals off at 15 degrees from one another. This is what they did to the G.M. 90 degree block V-6s. Only they used 30-degrees offset. These engines are called even fire V-6s. The ones without the offset are called Odd fire engines. This was done about 1980 or thereabouts.

If he had not of called this out to me I would never have suspected that it was 75 degrees so it must not make a big difference! I believe Ferrari has made some V-12s at 75-degree blocks.

After I get it finished I will put it up with the other one on I installed before.above.

http://home.earthlink.net/~leslie9958/_uimages/V-12LINCOLN75DEG.BLOCK.JPG

Yours M.L. Anderson

<img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Dear M.L.,Thanks for taking the time to respond,very interesting stuff.Just got home from the garage,this info. will get my brain in gear again as i am stripping old finish off my 39 Zephyr coupe which is a rather BORING task.diz <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The "con rod thickness" cylinder off-set sounds right. However a few early V12s(Lincoln KB 1932-33)had "fork and blade" design con rod and there wasn't any off-set. Not sure but I think No. 1 was still the first one on the left? The early '21-'32 V8 Lincolns also had the fork and blade design. DP

This is to replace the post above which is in error since the LZ block is 75 degrees instead of 60 degrees. This does not affect the firing order but only the degrees if you happen to be using a degree wheel for some reason. M.L. Anderson

http://home.earthlink.net/~leslie9958/_uimages/V-12LINCOLN75DEG.FIRINGLINES.JPG

http://home.earthlink.net/~leslie9958/_uimages/V-12FIRINGORDER.JPG